Journal of progress on my 1935 Ford pickup hot rod build

03/13/2014

1935 Ford Dashboard & Instrument Panel

With renewed focus on finishing the major fabrication work Rudy has been getting the dash sorted out.

At one point early in the project I had considered using restored 1935 Ford gauges but Rudy suggested period correct Stewart-Warner gauges. I think it was a much better idea. Check out some pics...

As a reminder of the starting point, this is what the dash looked like when I took delivery of my Ford cab

Even though I decided to go with aftermarket gauges, I still wanted vintage parts. My goal was to find a 1950's era Stewart Warner Police Special speedo. What's a Police Special you ask? Check out the product literature from 1954

Over the course of a few months I purchased two gauge candidates. The one on the left is from a police cruiser circa 1958. The one on the right came off a police motorcycle and was manufactured in 1968. I ultimately decided on the one on the left since it met my build guidelines of using 1950's parts whenever possible. That, and the police star graphic is just plain cool!

Factory sticker is still intact on the back of the speedo

Many speedos of this vintage are pretty worn. Fortunately mine still has a legible stamp on the back. The top digits are the model number. The bottom letters "B1" are a date code that tell me this was produced in B (1958) 1 (January)

I needed an water temp and oil pressure gauge to compliment the speedo. One of them is a vintage instrument and the other is from the Speedway Motors catalog. Can you tell which is which?

Here's the first mockup of the gauges in the dash. The Police speedo didn't fit in the stock opening so that had to be enlarged. With that done the two flanking gauges seemed too close to center so they were moved out. This meant that the side holes needed to be filled in so there were no gaps. See, nothing is ever simple, is it? Note the opening near the top of the speedo to allow me to lock the needle on a future dry lake run

Before the gauges go in the dashboard has to be reinstalled in the cab (it was removed during firewall work). The ol' Henry Ford steel was a bit flimsy so Rudy added a cross member. If you look carefully you can get the gist of how it supports the center of the dash

And finally here's a look at the column drop setup. The dash couldn't give proper support for the steering so a little more custom fabrication ensures that the drop is attached to something rigid